From Ashes
by nancystagerat
Summary: Post-ep for "Truth and Consequences" continuing through "Reunion", Ziva battles to collect the pieces of herself Somalia stole, and let those she'd thought she'd lost fill in the gaps she can't by herself.
1. Part 1: Tried to Escape

_A/N: I was re-watching "Truth and Consequences" for I think the third time, and this post-ep is what came out of it. It's 3 AM and my first posted piece for NCIS, so please be nice and review! _

_Not that anyone needs to hear it, but Bellisarius owns Tiva.  
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**From Ashes**

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**Part 1: Tried to Escape**

There was nothing there, hiding in those cloudy dark eyes. Nothing to protect, nothing to preserve, nothing connecting with the barest ghost of a smile Tony had thought he'd seen lend life back to her face. Gibbs wordlessly replaced McGee at Ziva's side, crossed his arm with Tony's at her back, and together they led her into the Somalia sun.

* * *

She lay in the darkness, lost to the demons that wouldn't allow her to answer the phone. She didn't have it in her to cross the room, to bridge the gap to her old life that waited on the other end of the receiver. Ziva curled in closer, knees to her chest, the ringing too loud, too thick and heavy in her ears.

The voicemail picked up Tony's voice for the fifth time that night. She closed her eyes against it. The demons she could deal with. Not him. Not yet.

* * *

Days passed, thin and brittle like the pages he ripped from his calendar. They ate him alive. She needed time, but Tony didn't have the luxury of patience. He needed to know. He needed to see her, to touch her, her shoulder or her hand warm and solid under his fingers. Because for all he knew, she may never have been saved at all.

He waited. It killed him.

* * *

When she finally picked up the phone, it was Abby she dialed. The familiar voice that answered sounded harsh to unused ears, the words too fast, and Ziva replied in a voice that felt too rough and slow by comparison. The pauses stretched long between their words. It was then that Abby softened.

"You're only human, Ziva," she said. "We'll wait as long as you need us to."

"Thank you," Ziva whispered.

* * *

Again he knocked. Again he went unanswered.

Tony leaned his forehead against the door. He'd expected to feel something, a burning in his eyes, an ache in his chest. Something. _Anything_. Numbness obliged him instead.

"Please," he begged. The sigh echoed too loudly, hollow against the hallway walls. "Answer me."

One second lingered into five. The door opened.

* * *

She'd expected this. She'd planned out how best to delay the inevitable. But nothing, _nothing_ could have prepared her for it.

Tony said nothing when she met his eyes, just stood there as blank as she for age-long seconds. She could read nothing in his face. A wan smile turned up one corner of his mouth.

"Hello, Ziva."

* * *

Tony braced for her to shut the door to him. Instead she did no such thing.

Instead, Ziva just sighed.

He saw no fight in her anymore. Just the same empty, clouded eyes that had haunted him since Salim had pulled the hood from over her head. But she was here, in front of him for the first time since their return. Finally, he could feel relief.

* * *

He hung back before her, never taking his eyes from her face. The move was hers to make, and Ziva was thankful, however thinly, for his allowing her that much.

He waited until she stepped into him, slid her arms beneath his. She tried so hard to touch him as little as possible, until Tony closed the last of the distance himself. She pressed her face into his shoulder, counted one, two, three beats before he brought his arms around her. Her fists grasped the shirt at his back like a lifeline.

* * *

Ziva had no recollection of being lifted, but the next thing she'd internalized was being settled on the couch in Tony's arms. No words passed between them, no movement, no tightening of arms around each other. She never loosened her grip on his shirt, he never brushed aside the dark hair that had fallen over her face and into his.

Her fight was long from over, she knew, but just for now it felt so far away.


	2. Part 2: Hands Like Secrets

_A/N: Once upon a time From Ashes was going to be a oneshot, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to continue it as a lead-in to "Reunion." There will probably be one more part after this, so please let me know what you think!_

_As if anyone needs to hear it, all I own is the interpretation._

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**Part 2: Hands Like Secrets**

* * *

The safety seemed to last only as long as Tony remained awake. He stayed with her until long, long into the night, but as his head lolled farther and farther back against her couch, slowly she felt his grip around her slacken. For the barest moment fear flared itself in her lungs and she was alone, lost again to the darkness his arms had held away. But as she pressed herself closer to his chest Tony shifted in his sleep, arms draping once more around her waist, fingertips just grazing the band of exposed skin at her back.

Ziva exhaled.

* * *

He woke early, un-rested on an unfamiliar sofa, with a substantial set of aches and pains to catalogue.

And alone.

_She can't have gone far_, Tony reasoned, pushing himself off the couch with rather more force than was necessary. Anxious bubbles rose and burst in his stomach. For just a second, he considered the possibility that she may not want to be found.

He shook the worry off.

_To hell with that._

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* * *

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"Good morning," she offered, studying the cold coffee mug between her palms. Slender fingers tapped a nervous rhythm on the handle.

Ziva waited.

"How long've you been out here?" Tony asked. She made herself follow the lean of his body against the doorjamb. Her eyes only made it as far as his shoulder. Then, she had to look away.

She'd spent the night in his lap, but couldn't force herself to meet his eyes.

The air between them ached with things unsaid, but this was not the time. Ziva wasn't sure if that time would ever come. Some things were better off kept to herself.

* * *

She spoke first.

"You should go. You should be at—"

Tony cut her off, but when he did, his voice was quiet, rough with sleep.

"Is that what you need?" he asked. "To be alone?"

Ziva didn't reply. Endless electric silence filled the gap and all he could do was watch her bring her fingers to her mouth, take the edge of one fingernail between her teeth.

When she spoke next, he almost didn't hear her.

"Tony, I…" She paused. "Yes." Her eyes locked on the tabletop. "Please."

He wished she would look at him.

* * *

Sleep finally came some time into the day, but the sun wasn't enough to keep Ziva from the demons in her head. The nights would bring her to Somalia, to brimstone and dust, to captors and tunnels and blacked-out swollen eyes. The day brought her to Michael Rivkin.

He was alive, in her dreams. Alive and imposing, and when he kissed her, her lips stung, raw and torn and bleeding as if he'd bitten her. But when she pushed away it was Tony she shoved. Tony who stood before her for an instant. Tony who fell forward, eyes glazed, dead weight in her arms.

Tony with a bullet in his back.

Michael held the gun.

* * *

He counted the minutes until Gibbs would let him out of the bullpen. But when he reached his car, he couldn't go back to her. Like so many things between them now, it didn't feel right. An intrusion. They'd lost so much in the months since they'd parted ways in Israel, much more than just the physical familiarity he hadn't realized he'd thrived on until it was gone.

Exactly _what_ else they'd lost, he didn't know, but it sure as hell felt like something had been stolen. Something he wanted back.

Tony closed the car door and sat there, head leaned back against the driver's seat, eyes closed. In limbo. Again. He sighed as if trying to force her out of his lungs, but he knew better than to think she would leave easily.

If Ziva needed someone, she would call; he was sure of that much.

He could only hope she would ask _him_ when the time

* * *

She didn't call him until far into the night, three days later. Not until she could admit to herself that she needed him there, with her. Needed him like she needed to face her own darkness. Like she needed her life back, like she needed her team, her security, any number of other words to try to name the things she'd missed.

Maybe even more than all the rest.

Maybe she'd never know. Maybe she was better off not knowing. But if anything was certain, if she was going to fight this battle…she'd need someone at her back.

If only she'd known that before she'd stayed behind, so many months ago.

Ziva picked up the phone.

* * *

He was dozing in his chair, _Teen Wolf_ credits music murmuring from the TV, when his cell phone woke him. Never mind that he had to stagger to the table in his boxers, never mind that it was practically 3 AM, and Gibbs was expecting him at the office at 7:30. Tony answered on the third ring. He grabbed his keys before even thinking to throw on a t-shirt or shorts, and when Ziva wouldn't say if anything was wrong he was out the door before offering to drive to her apartment.

She didn't object. She didn't say anything. But then again, she'd never been one to _ask_ for support, either. He took that as an invitation.

* * *

She met him at the door this time, hid a wry smile at the sight of his Rambo t-shirt half tucked into old basketball shorts. He said something so very Tony and she thought she might've laughed as he stepped past her, but she couldn't remember much beyond the sight of sleep ringing his eyes.

_Since when could she meet his eyes again?_

She followed to sink into the corner of the couch, watched as he pulled something from his pocket and turned the TV on.

The movie was _Casablanca_. She'd never seen it. She was pretty sure Tony had said that was a sin.

He settled in beside her, arm stretched across the back of the couch, not touching, and she felt something rise in her chest - _fear, maybe? Relief?_

Ziva must have fallen asleep, because she vaguely remembered a hand in her hair, a whisper not to straighten it again, and the barely-conscious nod she'd given in reply. But when she woke in the morning, she was alone.


	3. Part 3: Dismantle, Repair

_A/N: On to the end. Again, I own nothing. I just mess with them a bit and put them back where they belong afterward. And as always, I'd love to hear what you think!  
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**Part 3: Dismantle. Repair.  
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* * *

Tony lied the next morning when McGee asked if he'd spoken to Ziva. The lies came easy. The truth was more difficult to come to terms with. Like the fact that he'd left her before she woke.

He didn't need to crowd her. She knew he was expected at the base, even if Gibbs would not be there. She needed more sleep than the couple hours between their settling into her couch and his workday. Besides, he thought, she would had asked him to leave her be regardless. She needed the peace to adjust.

Life had to go on, with or without a return to the way things were.

No one else needed to know.

* * *

She paused with her hand on the doorknob, glanced one last time through the purple panes in the window.

Gibbs would see through her story about the drill at the base. Someone would have notified him that she'd gone to the apartment days ago. There was only so long she could stall on his front steps.

Ziva weighed the truth against the things that needed to be absent. She hoped her discretion would last long enough to remember which was which. And that he'd understand.

* * *

It took him longer than expected to shake off the shock. So much longer, that her comment about McGee being more handsome had nearly slipped past him.

He tried to play it off as if he'd known she'd be here. After all, Tony _had_ known. She would have had to come back out eventually. Just not that it was going to happen _today_. Or that she would have avoided his eyes so carefully.

The rest of his day was spent looking over his shoulder. He hoped she'd take the stairs down when she left the Director's office, maybe pause to speak to McGee if not himself. He was okay with that. At least then his selfish mind would stop its prying. At least he would know if she was alright.

The knowledge never came. His phone never rang that night.

* * *

He was too lighthearted, that next day, and before Ziva could mentally prepare for him she'd shut down, thrown up defenses. She tried to break them down again, if even just a bit. They weren't alone. Besides, she knew how Tony coped with things too sensitive for airing in the bullpen. Tony processed by being juvenile.

She knew he was waiting for her to say something. But she didn't know if she was ready to oblige.

His eyes appraised, calculated. Much different than they'd looked two nights ago, when he'd stretched his arm behind her on the couch. They had been unguarded then, and less…demanding. So, she supposed, had her own.

She shook off the concern. She couldn't work things out with him now, not while staring down the barrel of a psych evaluation.

The phone rang. Abby was expecting her.

* * *

He couldn't concentrate on the briefing. She'd been gone so long he'd stopped waiting for her. Her psych eval must not have gone well, he reasoned. She needed the time to process.

Or, she'd finished and snuck out via the elevator. Just like last time. Most likely to avoid him.

It stung, that she could call him in the middle of the night and trust that he would always, _always_, God help him, be there in less than a heartbeat, then treat him like a stranger just hours later. It stung real bad. But Tony forced the thought away.

A part of him wondered why he hadn't stopped waiting for her a long, long time ago, because for fuck's sake, it was too damn late for that now. He needed a drink. He needed to brood. So, after Gibbs released him and McGee, Tony raced to the bathroom.

His acting sucked, but it worked well enough.

* * *

Silently, she shut the door behind her. Stared at his back. Waited.

He noticed faster than he used to.

He asked how long she'd been there, and she replied with something she'd meant to break the ice. It failed. Tony's eyes hardened. Ziva hugged her arms around herself. But went on.

He was fixed and stiff, focused on washing his hands. She leaned against the sinks. Right beside him. Breathed deep.

Her confession began.

* * *

She started with Michael.

Tony pushed. He spoke a little too sharply and flicked the water off his hands. He hated to push. But he knew she wouldn't finish if he didn't.

Ziva pushed back.

He wouldn't look at her just yet. He refused to give up that ground. But if he had, he swore he would have seen Somalia's clouds pass over her eyes, darkened by the storm of blood and glass there'd been that last night at her old place. He could hear them there, howling.

She placed one hand between the two of his, braced on the counter.

Lightning raced up his spine.

* * *

She lied when she said it did not matter how things worked out for Michael. It did matter, it would always matter to her, but not nearly as much as she had once feared. Not against the things she'd come to value more.

She wished he would look at her. Instead, his green eyes were far away.

"So what does?"

She sidled closer, leaned on the hand she'd intruded between both his own.

_Look at me. _

"That you had my back." She swallowed hard. "That you have always had my back."

* * *

He listened without really hearing. There was too much he needed her to say, and too much she would never admit. But his gaze had flicked sideways to read her face.

She hadn't slept well, that much was clear. She was tired. She was straining. She held back because he knew she didn't have the strength to face what might come out without her consent. That was why they'd never spoken, those nights he'd spent with her, wasn't it?

She hadn't straightened her hair.

He pushed. This time she resisted. And…that was okay.

"I'm sorry, Ziva."

"No." She shook her head. He missed the words before she kissed his cheek, and when he felt her breath against his face he felt the ghosts still hiding in her lungs.

* * *

His crooked smile, more subdued than she remembered, met her at the door late that night. Her stomach constricted.

"Mind if I stay awhile?"

She couldn't say she was shocked to see him in her doorway. She'd almost…expected it. Tony would never be the one to let the issue die, not with so much still hanging between them, no matter how badly she would like to pretend they could go back to life as it used to be.

Admitting to herself the effect Tony had on her was one thing. She could accept that within the secrecy of her own thoughts, deal with it in the same way. For God's sake, she couldn't even define what the effect _was_.

Admitting it to Tony was another thing altogether.

* * *

"Come in." Ziva stepped aside. He strode to her couch, and she followed him with her eyes. Tony patted the cushion beside him, not entirely sure why he was inviting her to sit down in her own home, but she complied – albeit slightly farther away than he'd hoped. One step forward, two steps back.

He watched her cross her legs, then uncross them, caught himself wondering how many of her partners she'd brought back to her home before, and fought the resulting flare of jealousy when she hugged her arms to herself. She looked far too small for the dark blue sweatshirt swallowing her. Lost in it. Purple circles ringed her eyes. The fire in him died.

"Look, Ziva, I –" he began, but she would not allow him to finish.

"Don't apologize."

* * *

He looked at her from puzzled eyes. "For running out on you earlier?"

"You had a case." Ziva leaned her elbows on her knees, stared straight ahead and tried so hard to project a semblance of normalcy. But she felt uneasy and breathed too slowly and knew she must look so very stiff beside him there, shoulders up around her ears and hair falling into her face. "I understood. Never apologize –"

"–it's a sign of weakness. Yeah. I know." Tony shifted next to her, exhaled heavily, and all of a sudden he was too close and she was very, very unprepared for what might come next and she had never felt so exposed before in her life.

He turned his head to see her face, reached up with one hand. She flinched.

"You never straightened your hair."

* * *

Ziva drew in a shaky breath, and Tony pulled his hand away from her, watching. Her eyes stayed trained on the wall.

"It appears not."

He sighed.

"So how _are_ you?"

She looked at him, finally. He smiled a bit. The smile she returned was halfhearted.

"I've been worse."

"But you've been better."

Her reply was slow, measured.

"Yes."

"You don't sleep."

"Not well, no."

"Nightmares." It was more of a statement than a question.

She breathed in.

"Yes."

* * *

She felt his hand against her shoulder blades, felt him run his palm in long, slow strokes down her back. He drew her closer. She expected it to feel threatening, confining, taking too much of what she could not give. It felt like no such thing.

And when he kissed the side of her face, she did not pull away.

She didn't need to ask him to stay.

He let her fall asleep against his chest, and mercifully, she did not dream.


End file.
